Wasteland Kings
by iamsolarflare
Summary: A man with gills finds a campsite in the middle of a wasteland, a teen covered in vines tries to shoot down a Gun God, a rogue IDPD member accidentally saves a melted boy from her old team, and two mutants explore a rat-infested sewer. And that's not even half of what lies ahead for the gang. ((Human!Nuclear Throne, violence & lots of cursing. Will eventually contain everyone.))
1. Update 1

It was approximately three or so on Monday morning when Timothy Rechs found his new home.

The place wasn't exactly what one might call inviting. It was sparsely furnished with an old, probably petrified log and a crackling campfire. On the plus side, though, there was also an old TV and a movie tape player a little ways away.

This, of course, was the first thing Timothy checked. He prodded the eject button nervously with one finger, then sighed as the flap opened and nothing came out. He hadn't brought any tapes with him, and there wasn't a VCR box, so the TV was going to be nigh useless.

He sat down on the log and shrugged his heavy guitar case off of his back, then flipped it open and pulled out his instrument.

Timothy's guitar was his only worldly possession besides a sleeping bag and clothing, and he absolutely loved it. Sure, it was more than a bit damaged (he'd had to use it for self-defense at least three times) and probably out of tune, but he was a great player and it was his one source of entertainment.

As he began to strum a few chords, a small glint of something caught his eye. He narrowed his eyes at it, fully prepared to duck behind the log should the something decide to begin shooting. Such a thing had happened before, and, in all likelihood, would happen again. This time, though, it didn't, and after two nervous minutes had gone by, he carefully walked towards the glittering object.

It was a guitar pick, glittering silver-pearl in the moonlight.

Timothy stared at it, hardly believing his eyes. His hands had been calloused for ages - ever since something had happened and turned everything around into a wasteland, he hadn't had a guitar pick. To find one was incredible.

"I like this place," he murmured quietly. He walked back over to the log and sat down again, then inspected the pick closer in the firelight.

It was silvery-white and of average thickness, with a cat's eye etched into one side. It seemed to have a bit of a greenish tint to it, although that may have just been his shirt's reflection.

He smiled slightly, then began to play guitar again, singing no words in particular and making up the tune as he went along. The song echoed sadly around the campsite, making him feel oddly chilly.

When he felt finished with the tune, he left it hanging and looked up at the sky. Wisps of clouds were drifting around in front of a full moon and many, many stars.

Timothy yawned sleepily, then looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone about besides him, so hopefully it would be safe to sleep.

He rolled out his bag in a nice spot not too far from the fire, rubbed the slits on his neck absently, and stared up at the sky until, finally, he fell asleep.


	2. Update 2

Timothy woke up with a samurai sword in his face.

"This is new," he muttered, which was absolutely true. He'd woken up with guns pointed at his head before, but never a sword. He wasn't sure if it was a new high, or a new low.

"Alright!" snapped a female voice that was just a _bit _too cheerful for early morning. "Hands where I can see them, no weapons, et cetera!"

Timothy blinked the sleep out of his eyes, then slowly raised his hands to his face to rub the grit out further.

The girl pointing the sword at him was much younger than him, and fairly short. Her hair was very light-colored, nearly white; and it was short and fluffy, like feathers. Her skin was a similarly pale color, and her eyes were a piercing shade of sky blue.

"Oh, would you get up already?" she sighed, sounding simultaneously excited and exasperated.

He yawned unintentionally, then clapped his hands over his mouth. The last thing he wanted to do was look like he was being rude, especially considering what he was about to say.

"Is this a robbery?"

The girl smiled. "It might turn into one. Butt off the ground!"

Timothy groaned, ran his fingers through his hair, and slowly extracted himself from the sleeping bag.

"I don't have any weapons, you know. Just that guitar over there -" he pointed at his case, which was leaned up against the petrified log - "and a cool-looking guitar pick."

"Can I see it?" she asked innocently.

"Here. Please don't take it, though." He reached into his pocket slowly and handed her the pick.

The girl held it up to the dim sunlight, where it shone silver. "Dude, this could be an ancient artifact or some shit."

He blinked with surprise, both at the casual curse and at the actual sentence. "Really?"

"Yeah! I mean, it's got an Illuminati symbol on it."

"A what now?"

She shrugged. "Illuminati. Some sort of secret society controlling pre-Wasteland 'Murica, dropping of the letter A intended." Despite how odd the sentence was, it sounded natural with her saying it.

"So!" She whipped back around to Timothy, and he had to step back in order to avoid the sudden swing of her sword. "Can I trust you?"

He bit his lip. "Um. I think."

The girl laughed. "Okay, good! Well then, I-"

"-Hang on." He narrowed his eyes at her, swiped his guitar pick back, and moved a few paces away. "How do I know if I can trust _you_?"

She shrugged. "Corpse."

"C- _oh dear._" Upon feeling something behind him, he turned around to find the dead body of one of the bandits that roamed the area. Their throat was slashed open, and the blood was fresh-looking.

"You... killed them?"

She pursed her lips. "It _was _gonna murder the both of us, dude."

"...Fine. I'll trust you. Now exactly _who_ are you?"

She grinned. "I'm Cecilia Lee. Former eleventh grader, current samurai Chicken."

Timothy raised an eyebrow. "...Chicken?"

"Eh. It's what a friend of mine used to call me, because of my hair. It's fluffy."

"I can see that."

Cecilia strode over to the log and leaned one foot against it in a casual manner. "So, who're you?"

"I'm Timothy. Timothy Rechs. My nickname would be... Fish."

She wrinkled her nose in a confused manner. "Why Fish? Don't you have anything more badass to call yourself?"

He turned his neck to the side and ran his fingers along the slits in his neck. "Yeah. I figured Fish is the most fitting, though."

The campsite was quiet for a while after that, at least until she opened her mouth again.

"Kinda must suck to have gills when you can't swim in the water, huh?"

He groaned. " You have _no _idea."

"So!" Cecilia plopped down on the log with a mischievous grin, readjusted her cream-and-red outfit, and laid her sword slightly off to the side. "I'll be hanging with you from now on, all right?"

Timothy groaned good-naturedly. "I suppose I don't have a choice?"

"Nope!" She rummaged through a pocket and extracted an old VHS tape. "D'you have a player for this? I'd like to rewatch it."

"Godzilla?"

"Yeah! One of my favorites. Gotta love cheesy special effects!"

"I guess so. Player's under the TV."

She strode over to the television, slid the tape into the player, and pressed the power button on the TV. An old movie flickered onto the screen.

He frowned. "Cecilia? Uh, maybe you should... back away?"

She took a few steps back. "Why?"

"That TV isn't plugged in; it doesn't even have a power cord. Not only that, but the VHS isn't connected to anything either."

She shrugged. "So?"

"So _why _is it running?"

Her jaw dropped. "Oh. That is a very good question. It certainly doesn't look dangerous, though."

"No." Timothy sighed, then sat down on the log and faced the television. "Well, maybe we should watch it from around here. Then we'll have more time and space to get away from any possible bad things."

Cecilia nodded. "Sounds like a plan!"


	3. Update 3

**((Chapter warning! There's a _lot _of cursing. I mean it.**

* * *

><p>Plant was not having a good time.<p>

Strictly speaking, Plant's real name was Dillon Fairnway, and he was supposed to be human. He mostly looked the part - with dark brown skin, hazel eyes, a lean figure, and a sniper rifle slung across his back he could have been the protagonist of nearly any good post-apocalypse show - but the leaves all over him were more indicative of his mutant status than he knew.

So, yeah. He was part flora. It didn't bother him much, mind you, but boy did the police go into conniptions whenever he was around. One would think that he himself had brought about the end of the world, judging by their reactions.

In general, he had bad times, but today was worse than normal.

Plant lived in a weird laboratory-like place where weapons and mutants were scattered about like candy. While the occasional police-person popped by to try and blow his head off, he mostly got along with the plant freaks... even though they tended to explode in his face. All the other mutants in the labs had enough intelligence to be afraid of him, so he essentially ruled the area.

Today, though, the necromancers seemed rather tired, almost as though they were actually practicing their magic. He'd told them not to do that unless there were fresh corpses, and they generally respected his word, so this meant there were fresh corpses.

And _that_ meant there was an intruder in the lab.

He took out his rifle and held it at the ready, prepared to shoot anything that so much as twitched. Absolutely _nobody _in the labs could speak English back to him, so he was wandering into this absolutely blindly.

With an exasperated sigh, Plant adjusted his green and mahogany bandana and walked off into the darkness.

It didn't take to long to find the source of commotion. Some kid in bright green shorts and a white tank top had wandered into the lab and was shooting absolutely everything in sight with an odd, glittering gun.

Plant took aim and shot him right through the back of the head without hesitation - or at least, that was his plan. The second the bullet should have hit, the kid vanished in a puff of white light.

" What the _fuck_!?" He was utterly confused. Mutants didn't do that, and neither did freaks, Teleportation wasn't a thing that happened, it just _wasn't_. Maybe he'd killed the guy after all?

"Yeah, I agree what th' fuck. Ya should give warning 'fore ya shoot, dumbass."

The same kid Plant had _thought _he killed was now sitting on a wall, kicking some sort of touchscreen panel with green sneakers.

He was pale-skinned, had _abnormally neon_ green eyes, and his hair was possibly the weirdest hair Plant had seen in his life - it was buzz-cut along the right side, left hanging short and cream-white on the left side of his head, and dyed green and spiked down the middle.

The teen continued to ramble. "I mean, come _on_. Do ya not know firearm safety?"

Plant gritted his teeth. "I was _trying_ to fucking _kill _you."

"Oh well, in that case well done albeit inadvisable. I mean, engagin' a Gun God in a firefight sounds stupid in hindsight, don'tcha think?"

"You're no fucking god, and that's a lame-ass title for a gunslinger," Plant snapped.

The boy cackled and gave him a wide, unnerving grin. "Oh, I ain't? Teleportation, that's a pretty godly thing."

"Well, being a god of guns is fucking stupid, and I don't believe a word of it for a fucking second."

"A 'course ya don't, wouldn't expect ya to. Technically I'm god of projectile weapons, been around since one caveman threw a rock at another. Which's more than you can say, eh Plant?"

Plant blinked, as he was absolutely sure he hadn't told the strange teen his name, and then remembered he was literally covered in vines and leaves. "Actually, I'm a highly fucking skilled sniper and had you not moved, you'd be dead and your shit brains would be all over the floor."

"I know, which's why I moved. Name's Yung Venuz, by th' way. Though you're probably better off callin' me YV."

"All right then, YV. What in _fucking fuck_ are you doing in my territory?"

"Target practice."

Plant growled at Venuz, eyes narrowed. "You're fucking with my group?"

Venuz snorted. "What group? Alls I see here's a buncha lame half-dead animals. Not that animals ain't cool, but wouldn'tcha rather hang with people what can speak?"

"I _think_ I'd rather not, seeing as how the first fucking person I meet goes around shooting up fellow mutants and claiming he's a fucking god," Plant lied. He _had_ always wanted companionship, but companionship with _this _guy? Not on his life, he wouldn't.

"Pfah! Chill, kid. Not everyone's like me, ya know. Plus, the necromancers ain't gonna tolerate ya around much longer."

"What the fuck do you mean by that!?" he snapped.

Venuz grinned, then hopped down from the wall and slung his arm around Plant's shoulder. "Y'know exactly what I mean, kiddo. Those guys are gettin' sick of ya around, dictating their rules 'n shit. They've been plottin' ta unleash a huge wave of fishfreaks just as soon as yer distracted, then take over yer territory."

"You mean like _right fucking now,_" Plant snarled, wriggling away from Venuz.

"Yep." He cocked his head to the side. "Ya hear that, Plant?"

From somewhere in the distance came a rumbling noise, like that of thousands of feet heading down a corridor. Plant turned to Venuz with an incredulous glare.

"You planned for this to happen, didn't you." He stared at the teen, taking in the person's appearance. Weird hair, pale skin, white tank top with a green dollar sign, lime green shorts, sneakers, a scar over one eye - absolutely nothing about the teen said "I have a plan," and yet here he was, playing right into the guy's hands.

Venuz shrugged. "Guess so. Now hurry up and come with me 'fore we both get stampeded, kid."

"You fucking _bastard_," Plant muttered under his breath.

"Whatever. It was bound ta happen anyways." With that, the weird teen grabbed Plant's arm and snapped his fingers - and the two of them vanished in a white flash.

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><p><strong>((Ah yes, Yung Venuz. I spent a bit trying to figure out exactly how I'd write that horrific grammar of his, and settled on this. Hopefully it achieves the goal of making him understandable whilst carrying across his personality.<strong>

**((I apologize for making Plant a pottymouth. Actually, I don't - it's fun to write.**

**((Please review! Tell me what you liked! Tell me what you didn't! Tell me what you thought in general!**


	4. Update 4

Usually scrapyards were peaceful places, where one could roam amongst the cars and spare parts, thinking back on their past.

Well, pre-everything-in-the-world-became-nuclear, that is, because post-event they were now full of mutated ravens wielding gangster weapons, flame-breathing salamanders, robotic snipers - in general, things that were not fun.

Melting didn't really care, just as he didn't really care about a lot of things. He'd had a hard life pre-event, so it just _figured_ the horrors of his past would follow it around.

Apathy was how the kid with half his face melted off got through most of his life. He'd never been one to complain, although that was probably because the most of his life had been a living hell.

The scrapyard _was_ actually peaceful today, though, which didn't bode well. Somehow, somewhere, something was wrong. And if something was wrong, it was usually up to Melting to fix the problem.

The kid sighed, then carefully extracted a rusty revolver from the belt around his waist and looked around nervously.

Sirens screeched in the background, and Melting pressed himself up against a wall in panic. The blue-coated portal police - IDPD, that's what they were called - were some of the most dangerous people in the wasteland. They were truly nothing more than alternate-universe sacks of hatred towards mutants stuffed into police uniforms.

He didn't have anywhere to hide, so unless a miracle happened, Melting was dead meat.

And then a miracle happened.

A searing line of blue explosions, ones similar to the grenades the IDPD used, seared their way across the terrain in front of him, just barely missing him. The IDPD members not killed in the attack turned away from his direction with a series of panicked bleeping noises.

Atop a wall, her arms crossed proudly, stood a dark-skinned lady with short brown hair, a large blue tank on her back, an air filter over her mouth, and a strange pistol in her hand.

"_Hey_! _Shitheads_!"

She leapt down from the wall with a graceful leap, easily avoiding the bullets, and shot a smaller member - one Melting had dubbed an Inspector - before the policeman even had time to draw his weapon.

Melting sized up the Shielder - the larger, bulkier member - and watched as it threw up a shield, then charged towards the lady.

As soon as it entered the area where most of the IDPD corpses were, Melting snapped his fingers and watched as the corpses and armor turned into ash and raw explosive power. The Shielder was obliterated instantly in the cloud of cadaver combustions, and just like that the IDPD were gone.

The lady looked around nervously, a confused expression on her face, then hefted her blaster and pointed it at the sky.

"Whoever you are, come on out! I'm IDPD, I have a blaster and a powerful strike weapon, and I'm not afraid to use either!"

Melting coughed, sending the piles of corpse dust near him swirling, then looked straight at the lady. "You're not fooling anyone. Anyone could've seen they were going after you. You're a rogue."

The lady turned towards Melting, then strode towards him until she was three feet away and, relatively speaking, towering over the rather small mutant.

"Who are you? Did you do that?"

Melting shrugged as best as he could, then responded in his typical rough, raspy, and yet calm voice. "I'm Melting."

"I can see that," the lady responded. She then blinked, eyes shining in a concerned manner. "Oh dear. I hope that wasn't offensive."

Melting attempted a smile with the half of his face that wasn't simply skull. "No. I actually go by Melting. I had a name once, but it's not mine now. Too many bad pre-event memories."

The lady nodded in what seemed like a solemn manner, though with her mouth hidden it was hard to tell. "The Event. Do you really feel that life before it was that bad?"

"I know for a fact it was, or at least for me. Enough about that. Who are you?"

The lady sighed. "If I'm to call you Melting, then I suppose I should go by Rogue. I'm a former IDPD member and current vigilante. Not a mutant yet, although considering the sheer toxicity of the air, that soon may change."

"It's nice to meet you, Rogue," Melting noted, then cocked his head to the side and frowned. "How did you create that explosive chain?"

Rogue laughed, which was a surprisingly pleasant sound to hear. "It's why the IDPD are after me, naturally. This tank on my back collects and spreads explosives for something known as a Portal Strike. It's the only working one they had, so they're very mad at me for taking it. Now, how'd you, er..."

"Corpse Explosion? A melted combination of things I picked up pre-event in a basement that later fused into each other."

"A basement?"

Melting laughed this time, although with his voice it came out as more of a hoarse snigger. "Long story. Like I said, I'm positive life pre-event was worse."

Rogue shrugged. "Well, I suppose I can't judge you. However, I do have to ask... is there anywhere safe to stay around here?"

The kid frowned. "I don't think so, no. Perhaps if we could get out of here, but..."

"But what?"

Melting gingerly crept out into the open, looking around to make sure that nobody was immediately going to open fire, then motioned for Rogue to stand where he was and pointed to a large, three-headed shape making an ungodly snoring noise. "But that."

"That is one _big_ dog," she whispered softly.

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><p><strong>((Please, please, please review!<strong>


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